Being sick doesn’t give someone permission to emotionally destroy the person standing beside them. She didn’t leave her husband because he had cancer; she stayed through all of that.
What finally broke her wasn’t the diagnosis; it was how he used it as a free pass to treat her like she didn’t matter. And now she’s supposed to stick around out of guilt, just because the person who hurt her is hurting too?
This 27-year-old woman has spent the last four years married to her 32-year-old husband, and their first couple of years together were wonderful.
They decided to wait to have children, as they wanted to globetrot and see the world. Her husband used to be the kind of man who would bring her breakfast in bed, pay her loads of compliments, and plan romantic movie nights.
But everything changed when her husband got diagnosed with thyroid cancer. While they luckily discovered it on the early side, it turned her husband into a different person.
Her husband had to get chemo, and she worked with him to make their lifestyle healthier. She did everything possible to be supportive.
It took her husband under a year to recover, but the doctors have warned them that it may come back again, regardless of the treatment.
“I thought all is back to normal until one night, he broke the news to me. He said that having cancer opened his eyes and wants to try new things and open our marriage,” she explained.
Her husband literally said he has a desire to sleep around and said she owed it to him since he has a second lease on life, being cancer-free.
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She informed her husband that she didn’t want him to sleep with other women, but he told her that if she didn’t agree, he would do it anyway. So, they moved ahead with an open marriage.
“Four months into the open marriage, he brought a lot of girls into our bedroom. Sometimes two of them in one day. At first, I cried silently,” she said.
“I begged him to stop, but he dismissed me, saying that I can date other people and not like he restricts me to [sleep with whoever] I want. I didn’t do it, but I am hoping that he’ll get back to his old self.”
“I was willing to let it all go until one night, he decided to sleep with my cousin. He brought her home while I [was] watching TV and said that they’ll just gonna talk (of course they didn’t). It was a slap on my face, because he knew how much I loathed my cousin (she stole my first BF years ago).”
Well, after that, she started filing for divorce. As she was getting all of that organized, they found out that her husband’s cancer is back, and this time, the outcome is looking a whole lot more dire for him.
She’s concerned that everyone will think that she’s a terrible person for divorcing her cancer-stricken husband.
Make no mistake behind the real reason she’s divorcing him: it’s because he tore their marriage apart and expected her to keep clapping for him while he did it. Illness doesn’t erase what came before it; it just makes it messier to leave. I don’t think she needs permission to save herself.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
